"Food. The stuff you eat so you don't die. Leone asked me to bring you down to the kitchen." He jerks his chin toward the hallway. "Come on. I don't bite."
"That's not very convincing coming from a guy with someone else's blood on his knuckles."
He glances at his hands, shrugs. "Training. You should see the other guy."
I hesitate. The documents are spread across the desk, and every instinct tells me to keep working. But my stomach is empty and the walls are closing in, and this is the first person other than Leone who's spoken to me like a human being in weeks.
"Fine," I say. "But if you try anything, I'll stab you with a fork."
"Noted." He pushes off the doorframe and starts walking, not checking to see if I follow.
I follow.
The compound's kitchen is industrial. Stainless steel everything, commercial ovens, a walk-in freezer that could hold a body. Probably has. Two soldiers sit at a long table eating sandwiches in silence. They look up when I enter. One of them stiffens. The other just watches, chewing slowly, eyes tracking me like a surveillance camera.
Emilio ignores them both. He grabs two plates from the counter, loads them with whatever's available, leftover pasta, bread, some red meat I don't ask about, and drops one in front of me at the far end of the table.
"Eat," he says, already shoveling food into his mouth.
I sit. The two soldiers are still watching. I pick up my fork and eat without looking at them.
Emilio talks between bites. Nothing important. Complaints about the compound's coffee. A story about Claudio losing a bet and having to clean the armory with a toothbrush. He's loud and easy and fills the silence without effort. I get the sense he does this on purpose. Not because he likes the sound of his own voice, but because he understands that silence in a room full of armed men can feel like a threat.
"You're the one who found Renzo," one of the soldiers says. Not hostile. flat.
I look at him. Mid-thirties, shaved head, thick hands wrapped around a coffee mug. "Yeah."
He nods slowly. "Good. Fucker got three of my friends killed."
He goes back to his sandwich. That's it. No thank you, no handshake, no grand gesture. acknowledgment. In this world, that might be the highest compliment available.
Emilio catches my eye across the table and winks.
I eat my pasta and try not to think about the fact that I'm sitting in a mafia kitchen, eating lunch with killers, and feeling more at home than I have in years.
We're walking back through the corridors when I see Leone.
He's at the far end of the hallway, coming from the direction of Aurelio's study. Two soldiers flank him, and he's talking low, giving orders, his hands moving in sharp, efficient gestures. He hasn't seen me yet.
Then he looks up.
The shift is small. Invisible to anyone who doesn't know what to look for. His stride doesn't break. His expression doesn't change. But his eyes find mine across forty feet of corridor and hold, andsomething passes between us that has no name. Not a look. Not a signal. It lives in the body, in the blood.
Recognition. Possession. Want.
Two seconds. Maybe three. Then his eyes release me and he's talking to his soldiers again, and Emilio is steering me around the corner, and the moment evaporates.
But my skin is buzzing. Every nerve lit up from a look that lasted less than a heartbeat.
Emilio glances at me sideways. "You okay? You look flushed."
"I'm fine. The pasta was spicy."
"It was plain spaghetti."
"Then I'm allergic to your company."
He laughs, loud and genuine, and claps me on the shoulder hard enough to stagger me. "I like you. Leone's got taste, I'll give him that."
